Big changes in Medicaid payments to providers and managed care plans aren’t likely this year as state budgets recover, Medicaid rolls shrink and the U.S. economy sheds its pandemic woes.
Medicaid dramatically grew during the pandemic, rising to 80 million enrollees last month. Lost jobs and income last year drove enrollment, which remains high because federal relief funding was contingent on states not kicking beneficiaries off the Medicaid during the public health emergency.
“States are in a better position than I think many anticipated at the start of all this,” said Rachel Garfield, co-director for the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Program on Medicaid and the Uninsured.
State budgets didn’t suffer nearly as much as many predicted when the COVID-19 pandemic reached the U.S. Massive infusions of federal dollars, sustained consumer spending and a strong stock market that drove high capital gains tax collections in many states counterbalanced the fiscal challenges the